In the Catalog: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Submitted by tdewysockie on Fri, 2014-02-07 16:23

Philip Seymour Hoffman, an American actor and director, tragically passed away on February 2nd. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 2005 biographical film Capote, was nominated three times for Best Supporting Actor and also received three Tony Award nominations for his work in theater. He lives on in the films he appeared in, many of which the library owns and are featured below.

In 1959, Truman Capote was a popular writer for The New Yorker. He learns about the horrific and senseless murder of a family of four in Halcomb, Kansas. Inspired by the story, Capote and his partner, Harper Lee, travel to the town to do research for an article. However, as Capote digs deeper into the story, he is inspired to expand the project into what would be his greatest work, "In Cold Blood."

A striking portrait of drifters and seekers in post-World War II America, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master unfolds the journey of a naval veteran who arrives home from war unsettled and uncertain of his future, until he is tantalized by The Cause and its charismatic leader.

1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. Father Flynn is a charismatic priest who is trying to upend the schools' strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier. With the winds of political change, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James shares with Sister Aloysius her suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school.

Jon and Wendy Savage are two siblings who have spent their adult years trying to recover from their abusive father, Lenny. Suddenly, a call comes in that Lenny's girlfriend has died and he cannot care for himself. Lenny suffers from dementia and her family dumps Lenny on his children. Despite the fact Jon and Wendy have not spoken to Lenny for twenty years and he is even more loathsome than ever, the Savage siblings feel obliged to take care of him.

In the early 1980s, Charlie Wilson is best known as a womanizing US congressional representative from Texas. He seemed to be in the minor leagues, except for the fact that he is a member of two major foreign policy and covert-ops committees. However, once Charlie is prodded by his major conservative supporter, Joanne Herring, Wilson learns about the plight of the people who are suffering from the effects of the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. With the help of the maverick CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, Wilson dedicates his canny political efforts to supply the Afghan mujahideen with the weapons and support needed to defeat the Soviet Union.

A stock broker, who is having financial troubles and in need of extra cash, and his younger brother conspire to pull off the perfect, victimless crime. No guns, no violence, no problem. The only problem is that the owners of the jewelry store are their own parents. But when an accomplice ignores the rules and crosses the line, his actions trigger a series of events in which no one is left unscathed.

Theater director Caden Cotard is mounting a new play. Determined to create a piece of brutal realism and honesty, he gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in Manhattan's theater district. He instructs each to live out their constructed lives in a small mockup of the city outside. As the city inside the warehouse grows, Caden's own life veers wildly off track.